Klinghoffer Opera

by Editor
October 21, 2014 at 9:25 am

https://www.smartertimes.com/1300/klinghoffer-opera

As an aside in a music review of a performance conducted by John Adams, whose opera "The Death of Klinghoffer" has prompted protests, Times critic Anthony Tommasini writes, "Many of those incensed by the opera admit to never having seen it."

The use of the word "admit" suggests that Mr. Tommasini thinks there is something wrong with protesting an opera one has not seen. But the rule he seems to be propounding — than in order to protest something or be angry about it, one has to have viewed it — doesn't make much sense to me. It seems to me to be legitimate to oppose child pornography, for example, without having seen it. Or to be incensed by the beheading of American journalists by the Islamic State without having viewed the videos of the killings.

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